The Walking Dead - "Isolation" - S04E03 - OAD 10-27-13

Couldn't they catch rain water in all the barrels lying around the prison?

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A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that you would need at least one barrel (~1 meter diameter, assuming 100cm rain per year) per person just to catch enough rain for drinking water, and that is not even accounting for periods of drought and evaporation losses. I don't think they have nearly enough barrels.

Maybe they could rig tarps around the barrels to catch more water, but maintaining the tarps (and keeping them from blowing away) would be a chore. They'd probably be better off trying to dig a well and/or building a water tower with a large funnel to catch water. Or maybe they could find some well within driving distance and make regular runs to fill barrels.

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that you would need at least one barrel (~1 meter diameter, assuming 100cm rain per year) per person just to catch enough rain for drinking water, and that is not even accounting for periods of drought and evaporation losses. I don't think they have nearly enough barrels.

Maybe they could rig tarps around the barrels to catch more water, but maintaining the tarps (and keeping them from blowing away) would be a chore. They'd probably be better off trying to dig a well and/or building a water tower with a large funnel to catch water. Or maybe they could find some well within driving distance and make regular runs to fill barrels.

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Seems to be a rural area. I'd imagine many houses have wells. Looks like the prison well is sucking water out of a swamp.

Or they could just go back to the warehouse and grab all the booze from the last episode. Plenty to drink.

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that you would need at least one barrel (~1 meter diameter, assuming 100cm rain per year) per person just to catch enough rain for drinking water, and that is not even accounting for periods of drought and evaporation losses. I don't think they have nearly enough barrels.

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Eavestroughs capture rain from a much larger surface area and then drain into rain barrels, filling them up quickly in just one rainstorm. That's what we had growing up. In fact, several rain barrels would be overflowing after a storm.

Eavestroughs capture rain from a much larger surface area and then drain into rain barrels, filling them up quickly in just one rainstorm. That's what we had growing up. In fact, several rain barrels would be overflowing after a storm.

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Does the prison even have rain gutters? And if it does, would you drink water that had flowed over the roof into a gutter before going into the barrel?

A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that you would need at least one barrel (~1 meter diameter, assuming 100cm rain per year) per person just to catch enough rain for drinking water, and that is not even accounting for periods of drought and evaporation losses. I don't think they have nearly enough barrels.

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I don't think anyone was suggesting that they should depend entirely on rain water for their water supply.

I think people forget that it isn't easy to leave the prison and just grab whatever you want. Everytime you leave those gates your chance of death skyrockets. You would really have to weigh the benefit vs the risk of what it is you need.

Constantly going someplace else to transport water, would not be a risk I would want to take. That would be a last resort.